Chapter Fifteen

Meg.

I was alive, and every part of my body was aware of it, every sense feeling heightened. Morning light fell like liquid gold through the window of the hospital room, tiny dust motes dancing in it like imaginary ballerinas. It was pure, bright and beautiful. I could smell the cigarette smoke clinging to Dr Gotreich, his kind green eyes seeking out mine as he sought to bring me comfort in a place he knew frightened me. Every footstep on the hard corridor floor outside seemed to reverberate against the walls, and the soft speech of the hospital staff and my visitors sang in my ears. Beneath the shining haze that morphine laid across my new world, my wrists throbbed dully. I wondered if the baby growing inside me could feel. Did it have hands and wrists, nerves and senses? When I spoke, could it hear me?

One advantage of having only one intimate encounter in years was that I knew the exact date that I had fallen pregnant. I knew that I has conceived on January twenty-second, because the next morning the newspapers had been full of the death of Victoria, the English queen. It was a peculiar milestone to mark my life with, but nothing in my life had felt normal since I was ten years old. I was three and a half months pregnant, over a third of the way through the nine-month journey. I could expect my child to enter the world in mid-October; maybe we would share the same birthday, October twenty-second. How tidy that would be, if I had planned it.

I had only been pregnant one other time that I knew of, with the child of my beloved fiancé, Benedict Adaire. I had been vomiting, almost fainted, and felt a soreness in my breasts that I had not noticed until Benedict had fondled them when we made love. Things had been different this time around. I had felt nauseous and dizzy, but there had been no vomiting that I could not put down to my horrendous nightmares, and I had not fainted. I had not thought that my breasts felt tender, but could not deny now that the shape of my body was changing. The same day I had hurt myself had been the day I had decided to get re-measured for a corset. Had I suspected, even at the back of my mind, that I might have been carrying a child? No, or I surely would never have put that glass to my wrists.

How far along had I been when I had lost Benedict's child? Was the risk more or less that this baby would also die in my womb?

I sat in the armchair in my room at the Brooklyn Community Hospital, listening to the contended snoring of the latest orderly, a man with such fair skin and hair that he looked almost papery in his white uniform. Taking advantage of his well-earned slumber, I had shifted the armchair into the pool of sunlight that struck a small part of the cool floor like a spotlight illuminating the centre of a stage. It was too cold to be in nothing but a nightgown, so I wrapped one of the blankets around myself and settled into the chair facing the window, with my knees hugged to my chest.

I was enjoying the warmth of the sun on my closed eyelids, the brush of eyelashes against my cheeks, when my ears pricked at the rustle from the other side of the room. I looked in that direction to see Christine in the doorway.

"Christine," I murmured and beckoned to her, putting a finger to my lips and nodding to our sleeping companion. Christine picked up one of the straight-backed chairs and carried it across to set it almost across from mine, instinctively not blocking the light from my face.

"Dear Meg," she began. "How are you feeling?"

I shook my head, initially unable to answer her question. I felt sore, angry, confused, ashamed, guilty and exhausted.

"The doctors patched me up," I rested my chin on my knees. "And I really like the morphine. I… I'm embarrassed and scared. I saw Matilda, how is she? I must have scared the poor girl out of her wits."

"Matilda is all right," Christine replied. "She was frightened, but we… we told her that you were clearing up broken glass and that you had an accident."

I nodded. "Please tell her that by acting so quickly, she really helped. In truth, I think she saved my life. Although, what my life will be from now on, I don't know."

Christine looked over to my hospital bed, where I had left the pamphlets for the various institutions on top of the rumpled bedsheets.

"Do you know where you're going when they release you from here?"

"I haven't decided yet. Erik is letting me choose, for whatever that is worth." My voice trembled and I put my hand over my eyes to hide my tears. "I'm so scared, Christine. I was always afraid that I would end up as damaged as my father, and I have. I even tried to take my own life, just like he did. I swore to myself that I would never end up where he did, and yet here I am, deciding which lunatic asylum to confine myself to. Our lives are running on parallel lines."

"No, they are not." Christine took my free hand, careful of my cut fingers. "You listen to me, Meg Giry. Things have gone wrong for you, and things went wrong for your father. But you don't only have him in you; you have your mother in you as well, and I believe that you can be the best of both of them. Don't shake your head. Meg," I wiped my eyes and looked at Christine. She was leaning forward in her chair, holding my hand in both of hers. "There are some similarities. Both of you saw a child watching when you tried… to do what you did. The difference is that you stopped, and asked for help. That alone makes you better than your father."

"Christine, I fear you see more in my than is there."

"I do not. I see you, my childhood friend," she smiled fondly. "Metaphorical warts and all."

I returned her smile with as much strength as I could muster.

"I'm going to miss you so much when you return to France."

"I wish we could stay longer. But I will write to you, wherever you are, and I will make sure that Erik keeps me appraised of your progress. I want to help you, however I can."

"You've always been so kind to me." I bit my lower lip. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Yes, of course."

I took a deep breath. "I only just found out myself; I'm going to have a baby."

"Oh, Meg," her voice was soft, without congratulation or condemnation. "Do you know who the father is?"

"Yes. It wasn't a romantic engagement, but I was quite willing. It was just an act of comfort between two people who were not in relationships themselves and who felt desperately in need of that comfort."

"Do you think that he will provide for you and the baby?"

"Yes, I believe that he is a man on honour, and he is certainly wealthy enough to support a child."

She sighed. "That is good at least. I don't believe that Mr Seymour is worthy of you, but he is not married and at least he is willing to look after his baby."

"Seymour?" I echoed. "Thomas Seymour? It's not his baby."

"Then who?"

"It's Erik's."

Christine sat back in her chair, looking like I had slapped her face. I fought back the intense urge to apologise to her.

"Erik's? But you're not in a relationship?"

"No, and we're certainly not in love. It just happened."

"Is he going to marry you?"

"No, we're not going to get married. And I know what you're thinking, but I don't know what will happen once the baby is born. I just know that I want the baby to be healthy, and for her to be healthy, I have to be healthy too. However frightening that might be."

She smiled again. "Her?"

"It's just a feeling."

"Is there anything I can do to help you, Meg?"

I sighed. "You're going to be so far away. But you can give me any and all advice you have about pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood."

Christine stroked my cheek, and then rested her forehead against mine.

"It will be my pleasure."

It was a day of visitors for me, since many of my colleagues had the day off. After Christine had departed, a nurse with silver hair ordered me back into bed, and gave me another injection of morphine. Its comforting arms wrapped around me as the shining haze settled on my world again. Particularly shiny was the hair of my friend Lucy Phelps, who came into my hospital room carrying a bouquet of wilting flowers, with an air of worry floating around her like perfume.

"Meg," she sat in the chair beside my bed. "How are you?"

"Pleased to see you," I replied, smiling like a drunkard. "Being in here is really scary." I tried to whisper, but was certain that my voice carried to the orderly.

"Aren't they taking care of you?" She gazed at me with genuine concern. "Or is this to do with your fear of medical people in general?"

"The second one," I decided, after giving it careful thought. Lucky smiled kindly and gave me the flowers. "Oh, those are pretty, thank you."

"They're not from me, they're from Helen Roylott."

"Helen? Why did she send me flowers?"

She chuckled. "Well, because she is your colleague, she is worried about you, and while you are away, she will be taking on your role as the leading lady. She wants your blessing."

I giggled. "She doesn't need my blessing to do her job, I know what understudies are for."

"She wanted reassurance of that."

"She has it." I traced a finger across my blanket, until Lucy took my hand in hers,

"Meg, I want to you to know that whatever it takes to make you well and happy, there will be no expense spared. I mean that I want to pay for your medical care, or at the very least, contribute to it. Money is no object."

"Lucy, I can't let you do that."

"You can, Meg, and I insist upon it. I'm rich, Meg. Really, properly rich. You're my friend and that means a lot to me. I joined the Imaginarium because I felt like a freak and believed it was the only place that would suit me. I don't feel like that when I'm with you. You're my best friend, and I want to help."

I could not understand why anyone would think so highly of me that they would spend a small fortune on creating clarity from my disordered mind. The morphine decreased my pain, but in addition to its pleasant effects it made me tired and light-headed, and it wasn't until a couple of minutes after Lucy had left that I realised that I had been talking to her in my native French, which she could barely speak. Alone—apart from the orderly who remained in the room like a shadow—I found my thoughts turning to darkness again. The very smell of the hospital made me simmer with anxiety, as if my thoughts and feelings were a meat stew on a low heat. Tucked into the sheets and blankets, in a way that would have felt comforting had I been in my own bed, I found myself remembering my mad father, and the single time that I had visited him at the asylum where he had been confined. I blamed myself for his incarceration, even after all this time, although I knew full well that his reaction to my impertinence had been extreme.

I had been nine years old. Papa had been going through one of his 'sad times', as I thought of them, so detached from the world around him that it shrank to nothing. It was just him and his dark thoughts. I had not understood at the time what that meant; how the mind could concertina in on itself, until nothing could break through. I had tried everything I could think of to break him out of that mood, day after day. Nothing worked. Not joy or praise, tears or praise. I broke him out of his trance-like state when I lost my temper and screamed at him in German, repeating words I had heard one stagehands shouting at another. I did not understand the words, but Papa did. His rage was like nothing I had seen before. He had beaten me with his leather belt until I was barely conscious. He would have continued if Mother had not burst in, snatched the belt from Papa and thrown it into the fire. It was that incident that saw him confined to an asylum, in an area of Paris that patrons of the Opera House would never frequent. I do not know whether Mother had paid for his care alone, or whether Monsieur Lafevre had contributed as well.

I had not seen Papa for almost a year when Mother and I were allowed to visit him in the asylum. I do not remember what it was called, but I did remember brightly lit corridors of white tiles, and dimly lit corridors with dingy tiles, their white dirtied to shades of grey.

Papa looked grey too. He was dressed in a shirt and trousers the colour of storm clouds, his dark eyes seemed sunken in his face, and stubble shaded his jaw. His lustrous hair, the same golden blonde as mine, had been shaven close to his scalp.

"There was lice," he told me. "But they're gone now. Don't look so worried, little Meg. It's only hair, it will grow back."

Papa's doctor was a man in a white coat, his silver hair and beard glowing in the light as if he were an ice monster from a fairy tale.

The room Papa was in was divided by vertical bars into eight cells, the make-shift corridor between them spanning a width of about six feet. He was in cell 3A, according to the number stencilled on the door, meaning that he was one of the four inmates—patients—who lived in a corner and could make a pretence at privacy. He could turn to the dingy bricks, and pretend that he was alone.

When I entered that cell, hand-in-hand with my mother and wearing my Sunday best, I was struck by the overwhelming notion that I belonged there; like at any moment the staff would swoop down on me, and lock me in a cell of my own. I felt eyes on my, and when I looked around I saw that a patient on the other side of the room and two cells down was staring at me from between the bars. He was lying on the bed under a single blanket, grinning at me as one hand worked ferociously beneath the thin wool. I had not known, then, what he was doing.

"I'm feeling much better," Papa told Mother and I as he embraced us both. "My depression is lifting, my anger control, and I look forward to returning home to you in a couple of weeks' time."

Even with his assurances, I remember being frightened by the entire atmosphere of the place. It was crushing the air from my lungs, and after thirty minutes I wanted to escape.

"May I go outside?" I asked.

My parents looked to the doctor, who had followed us through the building. He nodded, and pointed through the doorway we had entered by. I hugged Papa hard, trying to convey all my love for him in the gesture, told Mama that I would be waiting for her on the little patch of grass outside the asylum, and fled as fast as I could go without running. It did not take long for me to realise that I was lost, each greyish wall looking identical to the one before, as though I had become trapped in the labyrinth of Greek myth. The corridors near the hospital entrance had been brighter, I was sure, and perhaps there had even been carpet underfoot. I could not remember, nor recall the path I had taken away from Mother and Father. It seemed impossible now to either return to them, or to find my way out. I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my lips together and trying to ignore the whimper of fright that managed to escape. I knew I could not simply stay where I was, had to find the way out, or at the very least someone to guide me; even Theseus had Ariadne.

I continued wandering until my ears detected the sound of male laughter. I followed it, my heart thumping, part in hope and part in nerves, until it led me to a wooden door, which opened into another tiled room. It was smaller than the one holding my father, but there were still eight men sitting on a long bench that continued around three of its four walls. Not just sitting, I realised, but chained down, with heavy shackles around their wrists and ankles. Their hair had been shaved like my father's, their uniforms were filthy, and a horrendous smell hit my nostrils, a mixture of sweat, vomit and urine. On the floor of the room, a single, shorn man was curled into a protective ball against the feet and fists of the two men in the pale blue uniforms of asylum orderlies. Some of the chained patients saw me, frozen in the doorway, but they were either drugged into submission, or too slow-witted to respond to my presence. The man on the floor caught sight of me. There was a cut on his forehead, his nose was bleeding, and more blood issued when he opened his mouth.

"Help me!" He gasped, and then found the energy to shout it. "Help me!"

Even without his prompting, my mother had opened and my shrill scream cut through the air like a pick through ice. I remember little of what happened next, only that the dark sense of anxiety that had haunted me since entering the building was now a flame of terror, as bright as a magnesium flare.

Even after Papa had returned to us, supposedly whole and healthy, his skin still seemed a little grey, and he had become so thin that his clothes were hanging off him. Only a few weeks later, he had ended his pain, once and for all.

xxxxx

"The Moon Hospital for Female Care," Erik read aloud.

"Absolutely not."

"Meg, you have not even read the pamphlet yet."

"I don't need to. You speak Italian, Erik. What is the Italian word for 'moon'?"

"Luna."

"Quite so. I may be required to attend one of these places, but I need not be reminded that I am lunatic by the building's very name."

"You are being ridiculous, young lady."

"No, I am not."

"You are. If you do not approach this sensibly, then I will make the choice for you." I sighed, and rubbed my dry face with my bandaged fingers. "Come now, little dancer. If you have honest objections to any of these establishments then I will abide by them, but I will not tolerate you playing games with me."

I could not bring myself to admit that I was not playing games.

"Put it at the bottom of the list for now. What's next?"

It was astonishing just how many lunatic asylums there were in New York State alone, how many people must be in possession of a mind as fractured as mine. Erik and I were working through the literature of nearly twenty facilities, and he was only just letting his temper show. He looked as tired as I felt.

"Hudson River State Hospital," he held up the next pamphlet.

It took us days to make a decision, given the limited visiting hours that Erik was allowed to spend with me, and my own recovery. Exhaustion would descend over me with little warning, and my dreams were dark and disturbed. I saw no-one else from the Imaginarium over the rest of that week, and no-one at all on the Sunday. It was the final day of Christine's performances, and presumably the last time that Erik would see her, maybe for another seven years, maybe longer.